Digitization opens a whole new array of solutions and value creation. COVID-19 accelerates this trend. Food and its ingredients will be fully traceable. We expect digitization to open up a new and intensified wave of digitalization, i.e. new technology-based value propositions. We would love to learn your perspective on Digital Food. Please share it on our IFAMA platform to feed the conversation in a ZOOM meeting.
Through digitization, a product’s origin, its journey through the food system and the economic, and ecological costs of its life cycle will be completely quantifiable and transparent. An example: bread's main component is flour. Through digitization one can know, for example, where the cereal grew, how much fertilizer, pesticides, and water were used to grow it, and the humidity levels the day it was harvested and the precautions taken to keep it safe from fungi. All steps to make the cereal into flour and the flour – together with water, yeast, and salt – into bread will be transparent: how much of what was used, when, by whom, and where? Producers buying the flour and consumers purchasing the bread precisely know its specifications. The specs of flour will be a cause for differentiating the simplest bread. . Customers can ask for bread that, for example, contains only North American, French, or Baltic wheat or bread that was made from wheat harvested at specially dry days.
Digitization has implications especially for the beginning of the food chain. More detailed and specific information is required. For example, to determine the nutritional content of an individual apple, peer, strawberry, or raspberry. What is the amount of sun a fruit had on its side of the tree or shrub? What is the composition of the soil and its ability to store water during drier seasons? Customers can ask for a specific fruit high in X, depending on a combination of factors. They all need to be measured (by sensors) in order to turn digitization into value. Being precise on the input, means the output – being used in the whole chain – is better coded and creates new customer demand and value. Further on, specific data on nutritional content can create value in the wide variety of personalized nutrition schemes supermarkets are now introducing. Another example could be freshness and ripeness. Both can be digitized and thus create value throughout the chain, as is already the case at Driscoll’s logistics.
Precision farming will give digitization a massive boost. Precision agriculture is a farming management concept. Its goal is to optimize return on inputs while preserving resources. Precision agriculture includes observing, measuring, and responding to inter and intra-field variability in crops. Drone images and gps, for instance, can determine per crop the amounts of water, fertilizer, or chemicals (such as herbicides and growth regulators) needed. This will result in fewer losses of a wide array of valuable nutrients and key elements such as water, nitrogen, and phosphate. According to Aidan Connolly, losses can be limited by at least 30%
Creating new Value
Digitization can turn the most basic commodities into distinctive goods. Distinct on for instance food safety and product integrity, health, or sustainability. Differentiation boosts new opportunities to create value for customers. All parties will be able to add value to the product they sell to the next partner in the food chain. Moreover, digitization will boost digitalization. Digitalization means turning interactions, communications, business functions, and business models into new technology based digital solutions. Think of personalized nutrition and distinct marketing concepts being pushed or pulled by farmers, by processors, between processors, between retailers, by consumers inquiring for new options or by all them collaborating.
Personalized nutrition and health means that people pick a diet that perfectly meets their personal needs. An example could be selenium in pork. A person with a higher risk of cancer can be recommended to eat a specific quality of meat. Or, think of an athlete. He can be advised to eat a certain harvest of beans or greens holding more protein. Moreover, a consumer can choose a portion of berries that has travelled the shortest way to ensure freshness and prefect ripeness. Or, vegetables with the smallest water footprint.
For unique concepts, think of a store that only sells products without glyphosate. Think of a salad that contains local products only for those who prefer to eat food that was grown in their vicinity. Local becomes more important post-COVID-19. Think of the search for mineral water with the least amounts of contamination or a specific mineral content.
This will enable new ways to meet customer needs, thus creating new demand. Customers can indicate what they want, for instance no pesticides. Horticulturalists can meet this demand since they know which parts of their harvest are pesticide free. The other way around, horticulturists can develop a range of products and find – through the internet – customers in need of this concept. Or, think of supermarkets inviting their customers and suppliers to talk about the customer’s demand for certain specs.
Digital is a perfect way to connect producers and processors with consumers. E-commerce – electronically buying or selling products on online services or over the Internet – plays an important role here. On platforms like Snapchat, Pinterest, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, sellers can show what they do, connect with consumers, and consumers can buy products. Think of farmers who broadcast themselves on channels like TikTok to promote their products directly to consumers. Live streaming is now the biggest development in e-commerce in China, as stated by Tiffany Tsui. Or think of community building: consumers and producers interact on for instance Facebook about products from a certain region or about a certain diet. A brick and mortar shop can only service a certain region, e-commerce can connect and service everyone anywhere.
No business without digitization
As stated above, digitization and digitalization create new opportunities in healthy nutrition. Making a product’s journey completely transparent will provide new ways of inspiring trust. Moreover, through digitalization the environmental impact of products can be determined very precisely. Thus, the best places to produce and process food stuffs can be established, including the impact of logistics. In that way global trade and logistics can be justified.
Join the Conversation
Share your view on Digital Food. Consider questions and insights such as:
What are the cases or the cases developing in digitization and digitalization in the agri-food chain?
What challenges will arise from the digitization and digitalization of food?
Please come up with imaginary cases to inspire the agri-food cluster!
Please share your experience in digitization and digitalization in agri-food!
Please cite the cases in which you have used digitization and digitalization to add value. What is your view on and experience with precision agriculture?
Please share your experience with e-commerce. How do you use platform(s) to reach out to customers?
In a digital world, what is the future of brick and mortar stores and face to face social interaction?
We would love to hear your story, your view, and your experience. Please share on the IFAMA platform to feed the conversation about Digital Food. How?
First: please join our IFAMA group meeting on ZOOM on August 12 (6 am PDT; 15:00 GMT; ACST 22:30). In that meeting we’ll discuss our goals: getting this going in society and business by turning IFAMA into a societally relevant virtual consultancy. Want to join? Email Bianca van der Ha, editor-in-chief of the IFAMA goes Digital platform, on IFAMA@Foodlog.nl.
Next:
Don't hesitate to share your thoughts in an article (a title, an introduction of max. 50 words, and the article of max. 800 words), photograph (at least one, landscape, min. 1024 x 617), and information about the author (full name, email address, and portrait photo)
Share other types of content, like video, podcast, or photo report
Join the conversation at the IFAMA2020 Rotterdam goes Digital platform and comment on the articles and comments of colleagues.
Digitization has implications especially for the beginning of the food chain. More detailed and specific information is required. For example, to determine the nutritional content of an individual apple, peer, strawberry, or raspberry. What is the amount of sun a fruit had on its side of the tree or shrub? What is the composition of the soil and its ability to store water during drier seasons? Customers can ask for a specific fruit high in X, depending on a combination of factors. They all need to be measured (by sensors) in order to turn digitization into value. Being precise on the input, means the output – being used in the whole chain – is better coded and creates new customer demand and value. Further on, specific data on nutritional content can create value in the wide variety of personalized nutrition schemes supermarkets are now introducing. Another example could be freshness and ripeness. Both can be digitized and thus create value throughout the chain, as is already the case at Driscoll’s logistics.
This will result in fewer losses of a wide array of valuable nutrients and key elements such as water, nitrogen, and phosphatePrecision agriculture
Precision farming will give digitization a massive boost. Precision agriculture is a farming management concept. Its goal is to optimize return on inputs while preserving resources. Precision agriculture includes observing, measuring, and responding to inter and intra-field variability in crops. Drone images and gps, for instance, can determine per crop the amounts of water, fertilizer, or chemicals (such as herbicides and growth regulators) needed. This will result in fewer losses of a wide array of valuable nutrients and key elements such as water, nitrogen, and phosphate. According to Aidan Connolly, losses can be limited by at least 30%
Creating new Value
Digitization can turn the most basic commodities into distinctive goods. Distinct on for instance food safety and product integrity, health, or sustainability. Differentiation boosts new opportunities to create value for customers. All parties will be able to add value to the product they sell to the next partner in the food chain. Moreover, digitization will boost digitalization. Digitalization means turning interactions, communications, business functions, and business models into new technology based digital solutions. Think of personalized nutrition and distinct marketing concepts being pushed or pulled by farmers, by processors, between processors, between retailers, by consumers inquiring for new options or by all them collaborating.
Personalized nutrition and health means that people pick a diet that perfectly meets their personal needs. An example could be selenium in pork. A person with a higher risk of cancer can be recommended to eat a specific quality of meat. Or, think of an athlete. He can be advised to eat a certain harvest of beans or greens holding more protein. Moreover, a consumer can choose a portion of berries that has travelled the shortest way to ensure freshness and prefect ripeness. Or, vegetables with the smallest water footprint.
For unique concepts, think of a store that only sells products without glyphosate. Think of a salad that contains local products only for those who prefer to eat food that was grown in their vicinity. Local becomes more important post-COVID-19. Think of the search for mineral water with the least amounts of contamination or a specific mineral content.
This will enable new ways to meet customer needs, thus creating new demand. Customers can indicate what they want, for instance no pesticides. Horticulturalists can meet this demand since they know which parts of their harvest are pesticide free. The other way around, horticulturists can develop a range of products and find – through the internet – customers in need of this concept. Or, think of supermarkets inviting their customers and suppliers to talk about the customer’s demand for certain specs.
A brick and mortar shop can only service a certain region, e-commerce can connect and service anyone anywhereE-commerce
Digital is a perfect way to connect producers and processors with consumers. E-commerce – electronically buying or selling products on online services or over the Internet – plays an important role here. On platforms like Snapchat, Pinterest, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, sellers can show what they do, connect with consumers, and consumers can buy products. Think of farmers who broadcast themselves on channels like TikTok to promote their products directly to consumers. Live streaming is now the biggest development in e-commerce in China, as stated by Tiffany Tsui. Or think of community building: consumers and producers interact on for instance Facebook about products from a certain region or about a certain diet. A brick and mortar shop can only service a certain region, e-commerce can connect and service everyone anywhere.
No business without digitization
As stated above, digitization and digitalization create new opportunities in healthy nutrition. Making a product’s journey completely transparent will provide new ways of inspiring trust. Moreover, through digitalization the environmental impact of products can be determined very precisely. Thus, the best places to produce and process food stuffs can be established, including the impact of logistics. In that way global trade and logistics can be justified.
Join the Conversation
Share your view on Digital Food. Consider questions and insights such as:
We would love to hear your story, your view, and your experience. Please share on the IFAMA platform to feed the conversation about Digital Food. How?
First: please join our IFAMA group meeting on ZOOM on August 12 (6 am PDT; 15:00 GMT; ACST 22:30). In that meeting we’ll discuss our goals: getting this going in society and business by turning IFAMA into a societally relevant virtual consultancy. Want to join? Email Bianca van der Ha, editor-in-chief of the IFAMA goes Digital platform, on IFAMA@Foodlog.nl.
Next:
This is an interesting piece and indeed without altering the "ValueProposition" the chances of creating a profitable business and a healthy value chain are minimal. Here below i share some examples of new value creation opportunity categories from our entrepreneur community that impressed me by design the most:
1) B2B marketplaces especially connecting specific product/category value chains players to business markets. We now have about 5/6 initiatives that are showing significant promise. For examples, a B2B marketplace for sweetcorn value chain in Nigeria being set-up by an experienced agribusiness entrepreneur, A B2B export marketplace being set-up for Okra and chillies set-up connecting India farm-produce to international buyers. On similar lines a marketplace for poultry value chain is being conceptualized by a Nigerian entrepreneur
2) Reseller network powered by digital platform. Challenged by the retail distribution economics and payment terms a small scale food processor setting up a reseller network for his and a few other manufacturers products. The core idea is to create new distribution network by manufacturers themselves taking the role of digital wholesalers. Conceptually, this is an excellent opportunity to develop and a model that would be an open opportunity in several markets
3) Technology providers taking stance in the value chain. The third model which i like very much is a model where the technology providers spotting an inefficiency has developed a technology and have decided to give technology away to the value chain players for procuring the produce against to serve nice contracts from downstream partners. The smart technology entrepreneurs seem to have realized that it is easier to create and leverage arbitrage opportunities within the value chain than to see sell technology to the actors
Happy to discuss more on any of the above or other themes of interest?
Raj Vardhan, thank you very much for your wise points and questions! The trend towards digitization and new digital solutions and value creation on top of that shouldn't exclude farmers that cannot (yet) comply (or perhaps never will).
The article on the session we had on August 12 is about to be published. I hope your points will be the subject of further discussion.
Traceability or Digital Food has been a desirable attribute for end consumers essentially in both USA & EU markets. The challenge would be how can the demand be scaled beyond these markets. The challenge also has been the insistence on traceability to specific farms. In the case of processed foods this is only possible in farms with large holdings which leaves out Africa, Asia & most countries in South America where size of the holdings are small. Preservation of identity of the small farm needs to be maintained over the entire chain from farmer to end consumer & this leads to challenges of processing capacity & logistical constraints of storage & transportation so as to maintain farm identities. The questions to focus on would be where can the resources be garnered to educate markets of Asia & Africa on virtues of consuming traceable food? How can we come to a common acceptable definition of traceability which can be relevant to both the small farms & smaller processing units? What is needed to build an acceptance around that definition?
Agree, in most countries in Africa it is indeed about ‘good infrastructure’. Hence, electricity, roads en water. Huge investments are needed, and then the rest will follow.
I had been in Nigeria, know the challanges & opportunity. Agri have huge potential to generate employment & surplus food.
Govt should improve electricity availability & its quality, make it 24 hrs available to all and give rail connectivity. Rest Nigerian youth can do himself.